Metabolics is the study of how all human activity rests on flows of energy and information that plug us into the nonhuman world. Its fundamental principle is simple: everything is built on top of bits and volts.
How the word moved
In September 2025 it was a Weekly Planet concept - I argued that cooperation and competition in the coming decades hinge on who gets access to energy and information and who controls them. In October 2025 it became the first finger of planetarity, the work of lining up human flows of energy and information with the biosphere's.
In my words
"The Fundamental Principle of Metabolics: everything is built on top of bits and volts."
from The Weekly Planet #5: Metabolics, 22 Sep 2025
"All human activity is grounded in energetic and informational sources."
from The Weekly Planet #5: Metabolics, 22 Sep 2025
Related
- Related Silicarbon - bits and volts are silicon and carbon by another name.
- Related Five Fingers of Planetarity - metabolics is the first finger.
- Related Metabology - metabology generalizes metabolics into protocols.
- Related Metabolic Sovereignty - it's the political unit of metabolics.
- Related Geocracy - my 2018 geocracy already started from control over flows of energy and information.
Still open
Metabolics (September 2025) and metabology (December 2025) overlap a lot, and I've never said how they differ. I should.